


Writhing Beneath the Surface

by Sunchales



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Dialogue, M/M, Minor Violence, One-sided Fawnshipping, Set During Canon, Shrimpshipping, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 12:00:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18571045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunchales/pseuds/Sunchales
Summary: What if Weevil let Yugi keep his Exodia cards? And what if Rex's friendship with Weevil started during Duelist Kingdom? An alternate take on the anime's first major story arc.





	Writhing Beneath the Surface

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: _Yu-Gi-Oh!_ and its associated characters and settings are the property of Kazuki Takahashi, Konami, 4K Media, and VIZ Media.
> 
> Most of Pegasus’s dialogue in this fic comes from canon episodes, as does some of Croquet’s. You will also recognize the start of the dialogue between Yugi and Weevil from the third episode, "Journey to Duelist Kingdom."
> 
> This fic is tagged as a canon-divergent AU, and it makes two major changes: Weevil decides to let Yugi keep his Exodia cards, and Rex tags along with Weevil during Duelist Kingdom. However, I made other alterations for the sake of a more interesting story, so this fic is not _exactly_ what I think would have happened canonically if Yugi had retained his Exodia cards in the anime’s first season. 
> 
> Lastly, I myself quite like Yugi, Joey, Téa, Tristan, and Bakura. The narrator of this story doesn’t.

Inside the ship bound for Duelist Kingdom, Weevil Underwood’s honeymoon suite contained all the amenities he could want or need. He could have slept on the couch in the lounge area if he so chose, but why bother doing that when you could get comfortable on a full-sized bed complete with a thick red blanket and feather-stuffed pillows? A lush bedroom, a private bathroom, even a living room with chairs and a coffee table...truly, this was how a champion should be treated. And Pegasus knew exactly how to treat the people who did him and his magisterial card game justice. Weevil’s face flushed as he remembered the exchange he had shared with Pegasus just after the regional championship. Sure, Pegasus probably had noticed Weevil filching that slender black rulebook out of his pocket during the celebratory dinner, but something told him that the most important man in the world of gaming didn’t mind. Besides, Weevil had put it on the table after he finished skimming it. It wasn’t like he’d run off with the rules and studied them at home that night or anything.

But as Weevil sat on his bed, laying out his cards in preparation for the next day’s tournament, the thought of having to face _that_ duelist with _those_ cards, those wretched artifacts so rare that one hardly ever needed to worry about countering them, ate at his soul.

 _You’ve never had to go up against someone who used Exodia before_ , he had thought several minutes ago as he flipped through his card binder. _You’ve never talked to anyone who has, either. And searching the Internet was useless! Not even your secret field advantage is going to help you here! You’re completely on your own with this one._

Mentally cursing the unreliability of search engines, especially as far as rare Duel Monsters strategies were concerned, he turned a page in his binder and landed on a sheet that held twelve trap cards, nine of which were copies of Infinite Dismissal. He sighed; couldn’t anything in his whole collection stop Exodia in its tracks? A card that forced the opponent to miss a turn would have been useful. Unfortunately, no such card existed in Weevil’s deck or binder. What about Card Destruction? That card forced both players to discard their hands, but then they had to draw entirely new hands afterward. If he did that, he could end up sealing his doom. And what if Yugi had a card that let him draw something from his graveyard? 

As he squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his temples, feeling his grasp on sanity slip away, an idea flickered into his head. Why not nip the problem in the bud?

The thought made him snicker, and that feeling of elation continued as he rose from his bed, walked to the door, and opened it onto the inner corridor. Finally, he stepped out onto the deck, a fire burning in his blood.

Weevil took a deep breath and paused to appreciate the scenery. In the absence of light pollution, all the stars above pierced the void and twinkled. The waxing moon, the celestial body sacred to arthropods, gleamed like a shadowed pearl nestled in black velvet.

The sight was too heavenly for crawling earthworms like the ones occupying the deck.

Yugi Muto, the one-time conqueror of Seto Kaiba, stood chatting with some tall blond guy. Whoever the other guy was, it didn’t matter— _he_ didn’t defeat Seto Kaiba, after all. Yugi and his dopey-looking friend both held cards of some kind, but those were of no consequence. Yugi had the only set of cards that Weevil needed to worry about. With those cards defeated, Weevil would blow right through to victory. Trying to look his most disarming, he cleared his throat—to no avail—and approached Yugi.

“Ah, we meet again.”

“Ah! Weevil.”

_What would a normal person say at a time like this? Hmm…_

He inhaled. “The evening winds sure feel nice. So, did you trade for any good cards, Yugi?”

“Nah. I’m gonna duel with the cards I brought along with me.”

“I figured as much."

 _Do it_ , whispered a voice in his internal ear. _Anyone stupid enough to hand someone else their rare cards just like that deserves to lose them forever. Yugi won’t win this tournament without these cards. And if he does have them,_ you _won’t win._

His fingers twitched, as though begging their master to cast the cards into the devouring abyss below. For a moment, a black ember flickered in his heart. He looked once again at the ocean, and his hands grew sweaty around the cards…

_No._

Weevil whipped his head to the side. “Who said that?”

“Who are you talking to, Weevil?” asked Yugi, still looking at him with that innocent, wide-eyed expression.

“Oh…no one! It must have just been the wind. There’s nothing like that evening wind! It sounded like my mom calling!” 

“The excitement of duelin’s gettin’ to your head,” the taller guy with the perfectly normal haircut chimed in. “I think we’re feelin’ it, too. Right, Yûg?” He wrapped his arm around Yugi’s neck and gave him a noogie, and the freakish-haired boy laughed. 

With a pang in his throat, Weevil handed the Exodia cards back to their owner. Yugi took them, though he stayed in the taller guy’s embrace for some reason.

“Are you okay? You look uncomfortable,” said Yugi.

Weevil tugged at the collar of his overcoat. “I-I’m fine.” The thought of this boy pitying Weevil in any way made him want to transform into a sea spider and throw himself, rather than the Exodia cards, into the brine below. 

The significantly taller boy, who looked comical holding Yugi, chuckled. “Aw, he’s just nervous, Yûg.”

Before Weevil could snap at the boy for the implied insult to his ability, Yugi added, “Who wouldn’t be? I’m nervous myself. This tournament’s a huge deal.” Looking at Weevil specifically, Yugi continued, “And you’ve got your title as champion to defend. If I were in your place, I’d be just as worried. But then, I’ve got other things to worry about…” A frown crossed his face, and he gazed at the floor of the deck.

Somehow, the sandy-haired teenager tightened his grip on Yugi. “I know how ya feel, Yûg…”

The moment was starting to become distinctly awkward.

“Well, it’s been lovely talking to you, but I’m afraid I have to get back to my strategizing. I’ll see you on the island.”

“Yeah! We’re looking forward to it,” said Yugi, who was still looking at the floor as his friend began to pat him on the back.

Indeed, Weevil had no intention of seeing those two before or after the island tournament—they were just inferior rivals to be crushed, nothing more. He proceeded back into the hallway, scolding himself for having solved nothing. Could the situation get any worse?

Then he saw the boy leaning against the wall next to his suite. Yes, the situation surely could.

“Rex Raptor,” Weevil said with a hiss.

“Come on, don’t be like that,” said Rex, who shot Weevil a sad puppy-dog look that made him shake his head. The dinosaur-worshipper’s rambunctious, growly demeanor from earlier had vanished, and he now resembled the sort of desperate soul whose anguish at losing gratified Weevil’s most bloodthirsty impulses.

“Why shouldn’t I? I beat you already. If you want a rematch, you’re going to be disappointed.”

“I don’t want that. I wanna sleep in your room tonight.”

The hairs on Weevil’s arms bristled. “What? How…presumptuous! Where did you get the idea that I—”

Rex looked at his sneakers and sighed. “I lost a bet with Mai Valentine and got kicked out of my room.”

Weevil thrust his own hands on his hips. This dinosaur buff wasn’t making much of a case for himself. “Then why don’t you go to the common area? Everyone else is sleeping in there.” Everyone except the _real_ winners slept in there, anyway.

“And spend the night on the floor? No way! I was the runner-up! I should get my own room, darn it. I’m not going to give it up just because someone who didn’t even compete in that tournament tricked me. Besides, I don’t wanna sleep on the floor.”

Perhaps he could have some fun with this. “What makes you think I won’t have _you_ sleep on the floor if I invite you in?”

“You wouldn’t do that, would ya?”

“Listen, my room has only one bed, and you are _not_ asking to share it.” Weevil jabbed a finger at Rex.

“I’m not! I’ll sleep on the couch. Sheesh. Uh, your room does have a couch, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. Just come in.” Weevil turned around and opened the door. He stepped inside and beckoned for Rex to follow him.

When he led Rex inside, the other guy breathed a sigh of relief. “Good! You do have a couch. I was worried about that.”

“Why?” Weevil turned around and shut the door. “Did you think I was lying?”

“No! Jeez, you don’t have to be so suspicious.” He walked to the couch and sat down. “Of course, maybe I should’ve been more suspicious of Mai…”

“That’s right! A duelist can’t be too trustful of any other duelist.”

As he removed his shoes and then put his feet on the coffee table, Rex replied, “Yeah. We’re all after the same prize, aren’t we?”

Seeing stocking feet on a table that belonged to Industrial Illusions was bad enough, but those words sent a sharp shock through Weevil’s heart, the same feeling he got when he received a B on a test and knew he would have to show it to his parents. Revealing his ulterior motive to anyone, let alone the runner-up in the previous Duel Monsters championship, could possibly be worse than his parents’ reaction to a merely slightly-better-than-average academic performance.

So, he said, “Yes…we all want to be crowned King of Games!”

 _Whew. That was close._

Before Weevil’s relief could last, Rex shrugged off his vest and tossed it on the floor. 

“What are you doing?”

“Mai didn’t throw my pajamas out with me. I’m gonna sleep in my clothes. But I can use your shower, right?”

A blush broke out over Weevil’s face. “Yes. I’m a nice enough guy, after all. But wait your turn!” If Rex got naked in front of him, nothing good would come of it, for one reason or another.

* * *

The complementary travel-sized shampoo felt cool in Weevil’s hair, forming a pleasant counterpoint to the warmth of the shower water and the hot knife of nervousness that scratched at his heart. Rex was right if he agreed that Weevil was participating in Duelist Kingdom for the honor of becoming King of Games…but that wasn’t the only reason. One other prize inspired Weevil to compete in this tournament, and it was the honor of facing Maximillion Pegasus himself.

 _Maximillion Pegasus_! Ah, Pegasus…that name was full of promise. That name came from legend, from myth, from the tales of the ancients, like the creatures in all great games. A name that implied the fulfillment of beautiful dreams! A name that spoke of flights to the moon and stars! And in person, Maximillion Pegasus really did have a silver mane to rival that of any winged horse from a storybook, and a wonderful glow that didn’t come through on television or the pages of a magazine. Any duelist who hadn’t met Pegasus personally just hadn’t felt the full thrill of Duel Monsters.

This tournament would take that thrill and multiply it exponentially. The only thing better than being the Duel Monsters champion or meeting Pegasus would be dueling Pegasus and winning. What would happen then? Yes, Weevil would receive the prize money, just as he did when he won the regional championship, and anyone would be happy about that. But what would Pegasus think of him if he won? Would anything change? 

The thought of how exactly Pegasus might react if Weevil defeated him sent a shiver, the latest of a line of many, down Weevil’s spine as he reached for the soap.

Then he thought of something else. Why did Rex assume that Weevil would share his room with him? Or maybe he didn’t assume it; maybe he just wanted it to happen, took a chance, and had his wish granted.  
Weevil shivered again. He tried to shoo the sensations from his body and mind as he finished showering and getting ready for bed, but the last mental image he saw before he fell asleep was Rex, flashing a tooth-baring grin that stretched from ear to ear.

* * *

Shortly before sunrise, Weevil rose, dressed himself, ate a lemon-and-coconut nutrition bar from his backpack, and brushed his teeth before entering the den, where Rex lay still sleeping on the couch. Weevil gave him a few shakes that, if he stretched the definition a bit, counted as gentle, and soon Rex jolted awake with a thick cry of “ _Hey_!”

“The tournament’s about to start, Rex! Let’s get moving!” 

Weirdly, as Rex stretched and lurched off the couch, Weevil got an odd feeling of recognition, as though he would need to become accustomed to waiting for Rex to wake up. He shrugged it off for the moment.

* * *

“Welcome all duelists. Please, follow the stairs to meet your host.”

The pointy-haired, besuited man who conducted the duelists off the ship gestured to the massive staircase that led up to an old-fashioned stone castle, which sat atop a mountain. The rumors were true: Pegasus really did live in a castle, like a king of old. 

Suddenly, a gravelly-voiced announcement boomed from the castle. “Attention: please gather around. Your benevolent host is anxious to greet you all.”

That could only mean that Pegasus was about to appear! 

In mere moments, the tall, silver-haired gentleman sauntered forth onto the balcony, his golden eyepiece glittering in the sunlight. Weevil sucked in a breath. Even after that face-to-face meeting with him, Pegasus was still a sight to behold. 

“Greetings, duelists! I am Maximillion Pegasus! It is my great honor and pleasure to welcome you all to the Duelist Kingdom.”

At these words, Weevil couldn’t help letting a devious grin cross his face.

“You stand before me the world’s greatest duelists! But come tournament’s end, only one shall be crowned King of Games,” continued Pegasus. “I implore you all to assemble your dueling decks with care, with creativity, and with cunning, for this competition will test your skills like never before!”

Pegasus held up a dueling glove in one hand and a pair of star chips in the other. “To track your progress in the tournament, you’ve each been given a dueling glove. You’ve also been given two precious star chips! You must wager these star chips on each duel you compete in. To advance to the final level of competition for a chance at the three-million-dollar prize, you must win ten star chips! Ten star chips will admit you into the castle, where you will face me in one final duel!”

That final duel would bring a newfound meaning to Weevil’s life. Anyone who wanted to face Pegasus was an enemy of Weevil’s. Rex would _never_ defeat Pegasus. No one but Weevil would defeat Pegasus…unless Weevil didn’t really _want_ to defeat Pegasus… But no. He shook his head to clear his mind of such a counterproductive thought.

The magnificent host continued, “This will be a tournament unlike anything you have ever experienced! State-of-the-art dueling arenas cover this entire island, and intriguing new dueling rules will be in effect! I could tell you what these rules are, but what fun would that be?”

Oh, _yes_. No one would have more fun with the mystery of the new rules than Weevil.

“You’ll discover them as you compete, or you won’t last very long! Remember, play boldly, think strategically, and duel mercilessly. You have one hour to prepare both your cards and yourselves. When the skies light up with fireworks, the duels will begin!”

Maximillion Pegasus retreated into the castle, taking Weevil’s admiration with him. Once Pegasus vanished, Weevil looked around at all the potential marks.

An hour clearly wouldn’t be long enough for the other contestants, who began digging their decks out of backpacks and pants pockets. Obviously, these people didn’t plan in advance for this tournament, unlike him. He’d built his deck to cover every possible contingency. Well, every contingency except Exodia…

“Is something wrong?”

Weevil glanced to one side and saw Rex standing a few feet away, looking puzzled. 

“You seem ticked off,” said Rex.

“…Oh, all right,” Weevil replied after letting himself seethe for a few seconds. “It’s Yugi Muto. He has…” Should he tell Rex about Exodia? It wasn’t wise to give your opponent information about one of your other opponents. Then again, if the regional champion couldn’t think of a way to defeat those cards, then surely Rex couldn’t, either. Leaning over, Weevil whispered into Rex’s ear, “He has the Exodia cards.”

The loud gasp that ensued inspired Weevil to place his palm over Rex’s mouth. When the other guy finished hyperventilating, Weevil let him speak again.

“So, that was how he beat Kaiba!” Rex replied in a rough whisper of his own. “He had cards that almost no one else does." He paused. “Are you thinking about stealing ‘em?”

The obviousness of this idea made Weevil cringe. Why didn’t he think of that before? Actually, now that he considered the matter, there was a good reason for that…

“If I stole any of Yugi’s cards, that lanky friend of his would have knocked me into next week, or at least off the side of the ship. Ugh, people who rely on muscle alone are the worst. Brutes.”

For some reason, Rex grinned and dug his heel into the ground.

“What, you think there’s something wrong with being a brute?”

Weevil thrust his hands on his hips. “Why, yes, I do! It’s not a real victory if you win through force. What counts is strategy—outwitting your opponent. And I think I can outwit everyone in this crowd. It’s just that no one’s thought of a way to counter Exodia!” He wanted to shake his fist but thought better of doing that in full view of several other duelists.

“Why don’t you come up with something if you’re so smart, Mister Strategic Thinker? Be the first to defeat Exodia. That would show the dueling world.” 

“Don’t you think I’ve told myself the same thing already?” This guy was getting to be frustrating.

Rex’s grin disappeared, as if he’d just seen a tree-borne sparrow try to leap into the sky only to fall pathetically onto a lower branch. The depth of his disappointment looked surprising. It was best not to question it. Fortunately, as the hour wore on and they conversed more about their dueling strategies, Rex seemed to perk up. Weevil checked his watch and saw that only a few minutes were left before the tournament began.

“Well, we had…” Weevil searched for the most accurate but least intimate word he could find. “A _pleasant_ night, but this morning, we’re enemies again.”

“‘Enemies’ is kind of a strong word, don’t you think?” said Rex with a weird heaviness in his voice. “I think ‘rivals’ is more like it.”

“Good enough. Well…I’ll see you around, Rex,” he said.

The fireworks appeared in the sky, and Weevil took off into the forest. He thought he heard Rex calling him, but Weevil just yelled, “I told you, I’ll see you later!” without looking back. He had a tournament to win, and he needed to blaze toward victory instantly. When you had an advantage, it was only right to use it. Who cared whether it was fair or not? Well, your rival would care, but their opinion didn’t matter.  
Eventually, his own speed caught up with him, and he slowed his pace to a light jog, which then became a walk. No one else seemed to be in the woods, but that was nothing to gripe about. He breathed deeply, savoring his solitude as he took in the many shades of green and the sounds of mellifluously chirping crickets around him. The bird songs were a nice touch, too, but they weren’t quite in the same league as the music of insects.

As if nature could read his thoughts, a swarm of moths fluttered by, just barely missing his head and face. He allowed himself a gurgle of childlike delight in the midst of the world’s finest invertebrates. One of the moths brushed his skin, and he let himself sigh like someone who had just guzzled eight ounces of ice water after spending a summer afternoon doing yard work.

Several minutes later, he saw something that made him catch his breath: an enormous artificial field made of metal, with a red platform at one end and a blue platform at the other. Clearly, Pegasus had spared no expense to make the duels on this island as immersive as possible.

After he stepped up to his console, it took only a minute or two of his drumming his fingers for some naive pipsqueak to approach him. 

The loser in question wore a backwards baseball cap and a ragged T-shirt and jeans. Now wasn’t the time to mock the boy’s fashion sense, though: it was time to duel…and win. In other words, he had to make the kid let his guard down.

The boy blinked a few times before breaking out into a smile. “Holy cow! You’re Weevil Underwood, aren’t you?”

“That’s right! Who are you?”

“I’m Kenji.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Kenji!” Indeed, it was nice to meet an easy mark. “What brings you to the forest?”

“Oh, well…” The kid looked at the ground and scratched his sneaker in the dirt for a bit. “I just think it’s a nice place to have a duel, you know?”

Fortune was kinder than Weevil could have asked for this morning.

* * *

That duel became the first in a series that saw Weevil deploy his disarmingly wimpy insects in combination with magic and trap cards that his opponents didn’t see coming. His marks tended to prefer monsters that _looked_ tough but crumbled in the face of a well-equipped bug or a perfectly timed trap…kind of like a certain other duelist he knew. It wasn’t time to think about him, though. In fact, he reminded himself during the second, third, and fourth duels that he didn’t have time to think about Rex.

Now, his fifth duel drew to a close as Weevil’s favorite monster took to the skies on his side of the arena.

“Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth, get him! Moth Hurricane!”

Under the reddening sky, the massive green moth creature flapped its red-and-yellow wings, creating a whirlwind that spun the opposing Giltia the Knight around in a frenzy until it toppled over and shattered.

“Your life points are blown to pieces!” announced Weevil.

The victim, another fresh-faced boy who was probably eleven or twelve years old, gasped as his life point counter slid down to zero. “Not him! He’s my favorite!”

“I don’t believe you cared enough about any of those cards for one to be your favorite. Now give me your star chip and scram!”

Pouting, the younger boy approached Weevil and handed him a single star chip. Unsurprisingly, this mark only had the guts to wager one. With no further words, the boy sighed and walked away.

Weevil fitted the star chip into the seventh slot on his dueling glove. This was too easy. Trouncing little newbies whom Pegasus must have invited simply because he was nice enough to make losers feel like they had a chance was fun and would get him to the castle quickly, but surely there had to be some real challenge on this island. Still, it would be wise to stay in the forest and let his opponents find him, since he could always take advantage of the field power bonus that way. Then again, just about all the contestants would have figured out the field power bonus by now—anyone who hadn’t realized it this late in the day was a hopeless case—and some of them must have monster cards that also benefited from the forest field. Was it luck alone that prevented him from facing a duelist who used a deck dominated by beast, plant, or beast-warrior monsters? That last kid was the fourth opponent in a row who favored warriors.

Well, if that pattern was consistent, perhaps it would continue to hold, and he had every reason to stay in the forest tomorrow. 

A sudden familiar cry of “Weevil!” broke his train of thought, and he twitched. 

Of course, Rex Raptor ran up to him, panting.

“What is it, Rex?”

The dinosaur-lover stopped and took a deep breath. “It’s Yugi Muto! You know, the guy with the freaky hair we met on the ship?”

“I _know_ who Yugi Muto is. We were both there.”

“He’s beating everyone with his Exodia cards! You’ve gotta put a stop to it!”

“Oh?” He let himself snicker. “Why are you asking me? Can’t you do something about him?”

“I can’t go against anyone who uses Exodia! I just dueled some chump named Joey Wheeler, and he _didn’t_ have Exodia, and look what happened!”

Rex held up his dueling glove, which contained three star chips.

“You see this? I used to have five star chips, but that awful Mai roped me into dueling Wheeler on her behalf for some reason, and I lost!”

Now this was rich. How easily duped could this guy be if the same person fooled him twice?

“She tricked you again, huh?”

“Yeah,” continued Rex, “you’re looking all amused, but it’s not funny! I lost to some guy no one had ever heard of! And he beat _me_. Me, Rex Raptor, the regional vice champion! It was so humiliating…and I’m worse off now ‘cause of it. Imagine if a random friend of a recently famous duelist beat you _and_ took your Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth.”

“…What’s this about losing my moth?”

“Don’t you get it? That stupid beanpole didn’t just beat me, he took my Red-Eyes! And my Dragon Nails equipment card!”

Red-Eyes Black Dragon, Rex’s only card with enough raw offensive power to stand up to most of Weevil’s special combos, was no longer in his deck? And “beanpole”? If this Joey Wheeler person was a long tall guy, maybe he was the boy he’d met on the deck of the ship—and he didn’t seem like someone who’d been dueling for very long. Yes, it probably _would_ be embarrassing to lose to him and downright infuriating if he took your best card. But there would be time to plot vengeance on Yugi and his friends later. The sun had set, and he’d been dueling all day. It was time to unwind and then get some sleep.

Weevil yawned. “Well, Rex, I’d love to discuss how we can exact revenge on Wheeler, but since it’s getting late, and no one else is around, why don’t we find a place to camp out? You can tell me _all_ about it once we get settled.”

“Huh?” Rex blinked rapidly. “You want to spend the night with me again?” What looked like a smile began to form on his lips.

“…Yes, what’s so weird about that? You may be my rival, but you’re still the only person I trust even halfway around here, and we both want to take Yugi down a peg, so why shouldn’t we stick together?”

The budding smile burst into full bloom. “All riiight!” cried Rex, pumping his fist. “Let’s get cracking!”

“Okay, okay.” Weevil stepped down from the Duel Ring and motioned for Rex to walk with him. Something about this dinosaur freak’s enthusiasm struck him as a little strange, but he had a feeling that it was nothing to worry about. Was it?

* * *

Finding a campsite under the darkening sky proved less than fun, but Weevil and Rex did eventually decide on an area several feet away from the mouth of a cave. Just as the two of them set out in search of a safe place to sleep—if one even existed on the island—Rex sheepishly admitted that he had forgotten to bring a flashlight. Of course, Weevil scowled at him and huffily dug his own portable flashlight out of his backpack. Eventually, they discovered a cave, which was no four-star resort or even a budget motel, but it would cover them in case of inclement weather.

“Man! This Duel Island setup is more raggedy than my middle-school summer camp,” said Rex as he unrolled his backpack into a sleeping bag. “And we had to bring our own box of tissues to that place. Why didn’t Pegasus provide any shelter for us contestants, huh? It’s like he doesn’t care about us.”

Weevil flinched, setting his own backpack on the floor of the cave. “Of course he cares about us!”

“How do you know that?” Something else in Rex’s backpack caught his attention, and he continued talking as he rummaged around in the front pocket. “After you won the regional championship, did he tell you how much he cared?”

An impulsive part of Weevil’s brain instantly replied, _Oh, if only!_ The thought made him flinch again, and he thought up a response that wouldn’t embarrass him to death. 

“He _must_ care about us. We’re his loyal followers!”

“Yeah, well, if he cares about us, why didn’t he give us a roof over our heads for the night? The guy’s rich enough to buy his own island _and_ live in a castle, and he doesn’t spring for a couple of log cabins for the people he invited here? Come to think of it, why did almost everyone on the ship have to sleep in a common area with no beds? This whole tournament is fishy, if you ask me.”

Even if Rex was right, he was starting to impugn Pegasus’s honor. Was Rex just bitter that he’d come in second during the regionals and not gotten to meet Pegasus himself? 

“Well, if you’re _really_ committed, you’ll put up with it!”

“Heh.” Rex produced a toothpick from his jeans pocket and plucked a bit of gristle from between his molars. After putting the used toothpick back in his pocket, he continued, “I don’t know how to feel about _that_.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Your attitude. I’m not sure whether I like it…but I think I do. Ah, what am I talking about? I know I like it.” As if he hadn’t just stuffed his face with jerky, he reached into his backpack and grabbed a bright red packet labeled TURKEY TERIYAKI. In one motion, he tore the plastic wrapper open. Then he slid the meat into his hand and then his mouth.

Something about watching Rex eat led Weevil to start pondering. Like a bachelor spider, he had always prowled solo. You had to start your career young if you wanted to be a serious duelist, and concentrating on dueling when you still had exams to worry about left little time for friendship. Caring about someone just got in the way of your path to greatness. Didn’t it? 

Of course, Rex had to interrupt Weevil’s thoughts again. “Man, I still can’t believe I lost my Red-Eyes to a guy who just learned how to duel.” He sat there and buried his head in his hands. 

Weevil decided to sit beside him and take his card binder out of his backpack. Opening the book, he said, “Listen, Rex, there are some cards that belong in _any_ deck.” 

Rex stopped pawing his own face and looked at him. “Like what?”

Aha. Now was the time to teach Rex to play Duel Monsters the way it should be played. Weevil flipped to the next page and pointed to one of his copies of Remove Trap.

“This one’s pretty basic, but since most duelists don’t expect it, you can use it and still be unpredictable,” said Weevil. He searched the neighboring sleeves for similar cards. “And too many duelists think powerful monsters alone will save them, so even if you have several monsters with high attack points, it’s best to find ways to stop them in their tracks.” After some flipping back and forth, he found a copy of Negate Attack and pulled it out.

For the rest of the evening, Weevil went through his card binder and explained to Rex the cards that every duelist ought to have. By the time Weevil was finished, Rex clutched a whole new stack of cards.

“You’ll let me use these?” he said, gazing at the borrowed copy of Mirror Wall, which topped the stack in his hand.

“Sure. I have plenty. Or didn’t you notice?”

Rex ran his thumb down the side of his brick of new cards. “Do I have to give ‘em back?”

“If you were just some rube, I’d say yes. But you lost your best card to a bozo, so…well, I kind of feel sorry for you.”

“You mean…I can keep them?”

Weevil nodded, and Rex slouched with a comforted smile on his face.

A few silent moments passed.

“Hey, Weevil?”

“Yes?”

“Do you still want us to be enemies?”

“Well…”

Instead of answering, Weevil whipped around to look at the wall. He wished he knew how to reply to that question. But—even if he and Rex weren’t _enemies_ , they could surely still be rivals! Something about dueling Rex gave him an even greater rush than he normally got from a game of Duel Monsters. Creaming a random warrior-loving preteen in a dorky school uniform was always fun, but going head to head against Rex just made his blood race in a way no other opponent could. Maybe Rex thought the same thing about him. 

“Well, what?” Rex yawned again. 

“Maybe we don’t…absolutely… _have_ to…be enemies.” Yawning was contagious. It must be why Weevil yawned right now. And felt his eyelids grow heavier and heavier until he couldn’t lift them.

 _Maybe…maybe…maybe…_ he thought as he fell asleep with his glasses on.

* * *

“Oi! What’re you doing here?”

At the sound of that pronounced British accent, Weevil just barely opened his eyes. What he saw through his narrow vision made him want to go back to sleep. Being loomed over was an experience Weevil was used to, but waking up on a cave floor to the sight of a lanky man with spiky pink hair and a hulking giant in stripes was something new.

Ideally, he wouldn’t have to repeat it.

The thin man with the pink hair spoke again. “I said, what’re you doing here?”

“Hey,” said the hulk, “they’re not talkin’. Maybe we should wake ‘em up the hard way.” He walked up to where Rex lay sleeping and nudged him with the toe of his shoe. 

“He’s not wakin’ up, boss,” the muscleman, a true master of the obvious, said. “What do we do now?”

Suddenly, a third, hard-edged voice joined them. “You call that the hard way? Nah, I’ll show ya how it's done.”

The tall, stubbled man who entered the cave wore sunglasses, a leather jacket, blue jeans, and an American flag bandanna. 

Weevil shivered. This guy was no ordinary intruder: it was Bandit Keith, the infamous prize-hunter and intercontinental Duel Monsters champion. Rumor had it that Keith possessed a mean streak a mile wide and wasn’t above cheating to get his way. Sure, the public could make those claims of Weevil himself if his inner demons were better known, but he wasn’t famous enough for that to happen…yet. But there was no time to contemplate that while Keith approached Rex’s prone form. The stubbled man motioned for the hulk to step aside, which he did.

“ _This_ is how you wake someone up the hard way!” Keith declared as he reared his foot back.

All of thoughts of feigning sleep evaporated. Weevil bolted upright and ran over to the blowhard in the bandanna. “Rex, _wake up_!” he shouted over his shoulder. “You’re gonna get hurt!” Then he dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around Keith’s leg, to the laughter of the two thugs.

“Hey! Get off me, punk!”

While Keith tried to shake Weevil off, Rex lifted himself up and yawned. “What is it? I was…oh, holy _Hadrosaurus_!”

In the next instant, Rex sprang to his feet and ran out of Keith’s path just as Weevil’s grip loosened accidentally, so Keith succeeded in kicking only the empty sleeping bag. More laugher ensued from the other two guys, and Keith whipped around and looked at them. 

They both fell silent.

“That’s better,” said Keith. He fixed his gaze on Weevil and Rex. “Now, let’s cut to the chase. You’re on our turf, and that means you’re under our rules.”

“ _Your_ turf? And what rules?” asked Weevil, folding his arms. “This is Pegasus’s tournament, so we’re all playing by _his_ rules.”

“Yeah, what he said.” Rex pointed his thumb at Weevil.

At first, Keith didn’t respond. Then he took his sunglasses off and smirked. “Hey, wait a second! You’re the champion and the runner-up from the last regional tournament!”

“We sure are,” said Weevil. “Now let us pass. We’re out to collect more star chips.”

Keith’s smirk turned into a scowl. “You two oughta know something first. It should have been me who won back there! But I couldn’t even get into that tournament, because of that lousy stinking Pegasus!”  
What? This loud-mouthed ogre dared to insult Pegasus, the man who was hosting this very competition? And to his greatest fan’s face, no less? Keith would pay.

Weevil strode forward and glared up at Keith. “Just what do you think you’re saying about Maximillion Pegasus?”

“Just that he ruined my _life_ is all. And now I’m coming to get revenge!”

 _Revenge_? On Pegasus? How could Pegasus have ruined anyone’s life? 

“Pegasus never ruined _anyone’s_ life!” said Weevil. “He _improves_ people’s lives with his wonderful card game!”

“Yeah, sure he does,” said Keith with a bitter laugh. “He’d never do anything like embarrass someone on national television!”

Oh, yes. What Duel Monsters fan hadn’t tuned in to that televised match, the one that had Pegasus himself competing against Keith? The little kid beating Keith was pretty funny, though nobody knew how it had been done. 

“Don’t be a sore loser, man,” said Rex. “Nothing you can do to us is gonna make you win a tournament you lost.”

Keith started to snarl, but yet another voice interrupted him: “Why do we have to kick them out of the cave, boss? Can’t we duel them instead?” 

Another person, a kid who appeared to be even shorter than Yugi, pushed his way into Weevil’s line of sight. Actually, “person” might have been too nice: this… _organism_ was more like a creature from a horror movie, with a sunken-in face and deathly pale skin that made him look one step removed from a skeleton. The only thing that separated him from a lich wearing a middle-schooler’s clothes was the mass of spiky black hair on his head. He rolled his eyes up to Bandit Keith.

“Can I duel him, boss? Can I?” begged the little creepy one.

The rage in Keith’s face dissipated, and he scratched his stubbled chin. “I kinda like that idea…but the Bug Brawler might be a little too much for you. He won that championship all by himself.”  
Now _that_ was music to Weevil’s ears! He made sure to draw himself up to his full height, which, if nothing else, was still greater than this puny ghost boy’s, and said, “Listen to Bandit Keith! I’d squash you and any other goblin who tried to mess with me!” Or, rather, he only hoped, but none of these bullies had to know that.

“Y’know, Bonz, I think he’s right,” said Keith.

The Halloween-supply store reject stamped his foot, to the laughter of his two bigger cronies. “You can’t mean that, boss! This is my turf, you said so yourself!”

“The thing is,” Keith said, addressing the trio rather than the indignant ghost boy who pleaded to him directly, “we don’t really need to _duel_ these twerps…”

Uh-oh.

“But I’m a peace-loving guy,” he continued. “I don’t wanna have to get rough with you, and I won’t need to if you leave us alone. So, go on. Get outta here before I change my mind.”

He didn’t have to tell them twice. They scrambled away as the pink-haired guy yelled, “And stay out!”

* * *

On their way out of the cave and into the morning light, Weevil and Rex backtracked into the woods. Some duelists might still be milling around in there, and the environment would give Weevil’s deck the advantage, or so he told Rex.

“Man, these tournament rules are nuts,” Rex said, shifting the weight of his backpack to his other shoulder. “I feel like I’m playing Monster World in real life. You know, the tabletop game?”

“You play Monster World?”

Glancing at a bluebird fluttering by, Rex replied, “Yeah. On weekends, when I have the time. It’s pretty fun.”

“What’s fun about it?”

Clearly, those were the right words, for Rex whipped his head back around to Weevil, and his face lit up. “It’s the greatest game ever—other than Duel Monsters, that is. You can create any character you like and take them through a bunch of different settings. It’s awesome!”

As they walked on, Rex described his current Monster World character, a barbarian warrior named Crunch Bonesmash.

“He had a rough life in the streets of Commoriom—sleeping in doorways, fighting other kids over groceries to steal out of people’s carts, dodging giant rats. Then a reptile-breeder took him under his wing and made him his apprentice. So, Crunch grew up learning how to take care of dragons and serpents and big lizards, and now he can talk to them.”

“How is that possible?”

“He’s dual-classing as a beast-tamer. I was thinking about making him part magician, but he’s a real sword-and-mace kind of guy. Maybe my next character will be a magic-user…”

Debating the finer points of creating a spellcasting RPG character would have to wait, because a familiar voice interrupted the conversation.

“Look, Yûg, it’s like I said. I don’t want ya fightin’ my battles for me.”

Did Weevil’s ears deceive him? No: just a short distance away, separated from him and Rex by only some trees and bushes, was that tall guy who’d hung out with Yugi on the ship. And Yugi was with him, along with a brown-haired girl and two other guys, one a delicate type with long white hair and the other clad in a trench coat. This last member of the group had brown hair that tapered into a point, but it didn’t compete with Yugi’s hairdo for weirdness. 

The instant Rex opened his mouth, Weevil closed his hand over it and dragged him down behind the bushes. As quietly as they could manage, they listened to their rivals’ conversation:

“If I don’t win these duels on my own, I might as well be a whipped dog. This is my chance to prove that I’m worthy of being called a real duelist.”

The guy with the pointy hair chimed in, “But Joey, you said you hated slowing Yugi down.”

The girl added, “Besides, think of S—”

But the guy didn’t let her finish. “I told ya, Téa, if Yugi gives me his star chips or even lets me borrow Exodia, he’ll be doin’ the work for me! Where’s the honor in that?”

“Honor?” rebutted the girl. “Joey, this isn’t the time to worry about that. You need to be practical. As long as you don’t cheat, what’s the harm in taking whatever help there is?”

The feeling of agreement with one of his rival’s friends nuzzled Weevil’s heart, and he twitched.

“No, it’s all right,” said Yugi. “We’ve been over this. If Joey doesn’t want me to give him any of my star chips, then I won’t.”

Enough time had passed that Weevil felt safe in taking his hand off Rex’s mouth. When he did, Rex whispered, “That’s the chump who took my Red-Eyes. Joey Wheeler!”

No way. The dopey friend of Yugi’s was the same guy who’d robbed Rex of his most precious card? This was a coup—or it would be if Weevil conquered both the pipsqueak and, as Rex called him, the beanpole.  
“Ooh, I’d love to duel ‘em and put ‘em in their place…but without my Red-Eyes, I don’t know what to do. You think you could take ‘em now?” Rex shifted from a forlorn to an imploring expression instantaneously. The tightening within Weevil’s chest disconcerted him but not so much that he couldn’t think of a strategic response.

“That may _seem_ like a good idea,” he said in a hushed voice, “but I think we should focus on collecting star chips from the weaker specimens. Let Yugi get to the castle—I’m sure he will—and we can both try to beat him there. If Wheeler’s there, too, I’ll crush him. That way, we can embarrass them in front of Pegasus, and that will make victory all the sweeter.” He licked his lips.

“Well, I think maybe you’re putting off going up against Exodia…but I like your plan. We can ignore Yugi until the finals, and then we can get him _and_ square off against each other!”

The band of do-gooders began to walk away, diverting Weevil’s gaze from Rex’s face for a few moments, much to his own relief. 

When their quarry had vanished from sight, Rex nudged Weevil. 

“Say, you got any more food in that bag?”

“Nothing that would suit a carnivore. Are you out of jerky already?”

“Well…yeah.” His stomach growled, as if emphasizing the point.

Taking care to grumble audibly, Weevil stood up, removed his backpack, and set it on the ground. He knelt, unzipped his bag’s front pocket, and rummaged through it. A few seconds of searching reacquainted him with the bottles of aspirin, the dragonfly-patterned glasses case, and the nutrition bars he had packed. Finally, he clutched a small bag of whole-grain cheddar-flavored chips. He tossed it to Rex, who caught it with a wide-mouthed grin.

“Knock yourself out.”

His words meant nothing. Rex had already torn open the bag and started to stuff his face, spraying orange-brown crumbs in the air.

Watching Rex wolf down his snack reminded Weevil to fill his own belly, so he reached back into the front pocket of his backpack. His fingers closed around a nutrition bar in a bright blue wrapper. He stood up, peeled the wrapper off the bar, and then bit into the top end and savored the sweet interplay of blueberries, almonds, and vanilla seeping into his mouth.

They both stood there, consuming their respective breakfasts. Privately, Weevil felt glad not only for the food but for the respite from dueling. Yesterday, he had pushed himself to duel for hours, and while doing that gained him over half the star chips he needed to qualify for the finals, it diminished his enthusiasm for today’s duels.

And yet he was nothing if not focused on his ultimate goals.

Crumpling the empty wrapper and stuffing it into his pocket, he said, “It’s time to look for more schmucks to duel.”

“If that’s what you want,” Rex said through a mouthful of chips. After swallowing, he looked around as if searching for a trash can, and Weevil snatched the bag out of his hand.

“Give me that. We’re not a couple of litterbugs.” Still keeping his eyes on Rex, Weevil placed the empty bag into his backpack’s mesh side pocket.

“We _are_ a couple of predators, though. Kings of the jungle, right?”

“We are! Let’s go find our prey!”

“Well…are you sure we can collect enough star chips before tonight?”

“Relax, Rex. You overheard Yugi. He’s taking it slow on Wheeler’s behalf. Even though Yugi has those Exodia cards, he’s letting his commitment to his friend’s personal vision get in his way.” He scoffed. “Friendship! What good does it do when you’re battling for supremacy?”

“…Well, _we’re_ hanging out,” said Rex, a hint of dejection in his voice.

Weevil paused. Was he, in fact, making the same mistake as Yugi Muto? Yugi could probably afford to take his time, thanks to that wretched Exodia. Meanwhile, here was Weevil with his deck of grubby little lightweights, and now he was dragging a living fossil—no, he couldn’t let himself think that way. Having an actual friend could help him out in ways he didn’t expect. And maybe, just maybe, there was something _he_ could do for Rex…

Sweet centipedes, what was getting into him? Usually, he’d be speeding towards victory without a thought about anyone else. Had he become a _cooperative_ gamer? That wasn’t his style at all! But here was this dinosaur fanatic clinging to him like a mosquito on a picnicker’s bare legs, and unlike a hapless person just wanting to enjoy a sandwich on the grass, Weevil was not trying to shoo him away.

“Uh…are you still there? Earth to Weevil. You were just talking about how we needed to win more star chips, remember?”

 _Oh!_ Weevil’s attention snapped back to his surroundings.

“Yes, of course! Don’t distract me like that, Rex. We have to get back to hunting!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Weevil saw Rex smirk as they sallied forth.

* * *

Their trek through the forest saw Rex win two star chips and Weevil win one, the former against a sea serpent specialist and the latter against a user of beast-warriors. To pace themselves, the pair took a break for more snacks under a nearby tree.

“My parents just barely let me participate in this tournament,” Weevil said as he opened another nutrition bar, this one dominated by chocolate, sea salt, and spinach. "First they made me do my homework for the whole weekend in advance, and then I had to promise not to get into trouble on the island. If they weren’t so concerned that I’d lose the cell phone, they’d have made me take it so they could call me every hour!” He bit into his protein bar.

“Your folks have a cell phone? My mom just replaced our rotary phone with a wall-mounted one a couple years ago.” Rex shifted his pack of peanut butter sandwich crackers from one hand to the other. “You might like living with her instead of your parents, though. She doesn’t care much about how I do in school. I just wish I could win this tournament and rake in the big bucks, you know?”

Before he knew what he was saying, Weevil asked, “You mean you wouldn’t spend it all on cards?”

“No, I wouldn’t spend it all on cards!” Frowning, Rex popped a cracker into his mouth and chewed it. “I’d get out of my home town for good and see all the famous dig sites,” he said through his mouthful of peanut butter, crumbs, and salt.

“That’s all?” The thought of leaving his home town permanently rang through Weevil’s mind every day, but the idea of using prize money to see where paleontologists dug up dinosaur bones struck him as anticlimactic. “I’d pour that money into saving the bees.”

Rex swallowed his cracker. “All of it?”

“Bees are the most criminally underrated animals on Earth! We can’t survive without them. Whoever saves the bees will save the world!” Now wasn’t the time for a presentation on the importance of bees and their dire circumstances, but the idea tempted him. 

“Whoa. Well, couldn’t we do both? Hightail it out of our parents’ houses, tour the dig sites, and save the bees?”

The implications of those words gave Weevil pause. 

“ _We_?”

Now Rex’s frown deepened. “Friends always share, don’t they?”

“…Yes, I guess they do.”

The other guy didn’t look totally satisfied with that answer, but his expression softened. Weevil tried to avoid analyzing it as he finished his nutrition bar.

Eventually, as they neared the edge of the woods, they saw a duel in the nearest clearing. The competitors made for an odd pairing: one was another just barely teenage kid in blue jeans and a T-shirt, and the other was a tall, burly man in combat fatigues and holsters. A well-muscled gladiator stood on the young boy’s side of the field, dwarfed by the massive tank in front of the soldier-like man.

“Check it out,” Rex whispered. “I didn’t see that big guy on the boat. Did you?”

“No,” Weevil took care to say in a hushed voice. “And look at those monsters—the kid’s playing with warriors, no points for originality, but the soldier’s packing bigger guns than I’ve seen since…well, Bandit Keith.”

“Did someone mention me?”

That gruff voice shot through the air, and a pair of hands grabbed them from behind and tugged them backward.

“What’s the big idea, manhandling us like this?” Weevil demanded as he turned his head to face whatever had a hold on him. Then he saw who had him by the coat collar and Rex by the hair, and he gasped.

“Bandit Keith! Again?” cried Rex, wiggling in pain at Keith’s grasp on his hair. “Whaddaya want from us?”

The big prize-hunter smirked as Rex squirmed and grunted. Although Weevil could relate to the pleasure of making opponents uncomfortable, seeing this happen to Rex poked a sleeping funnel web spider inside him.

“We left your stupid cave like you told us to! Now let us go! That’s it, I challenge you to a duel!”

“Heh. I don’t think so. See, I’ve got ten star chips already. Dueling you would only slow me down. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just beat you lightweights into a pulp and be on my way to the castle!”  
Weevil felt his stomach fall. This man was completely serious and capable of carrying out his threat.

“Uh…because you want to win the honest way and have the honor of dueling a champion?” suggested Rex, still struggling.

Keith reared his head back in laughter.

“Weren’t you listening to what I just said? I’ve won ten star chips! That’s enough honest dueling for me! Now, hold still. I’m gonna thrash you both, starting with the four-eyed bug nerd.”

Knowing he had no options left, Weevil bit his lip to keep himself from whimpering as Keith let go of Rex and curled his free hand into a fist. Weevil closed his eyes and braced himself for the impact…

But instead, he heard flesh smack into someone else’s, followed by a gurgling cry of pain. His eyes snapped open, and he saw Rex kneeling on the ground, doubled over, clutching the side of his face, and moaning.

Bandit Keith chortled. “So, the dino-loving longhair wants to go first, huh? Fine with me.” He raised his fist to hit Rex again—

Without thinking, Weevil jumped in front of him, letting Keith’s fist collide with his chin. A burst of pain rocketed through his jaws, and he fell backwards onto the ground.

“Your friendship’s so cute it makes me kinda sick. Now wait ‘til I—”

Suddenly, another man of impressive height stepped into the forest: the guy who had just defeated the thirteen-year-old. He jumped in front of Keith and grabbed his wrist.

“Hey! What gives? Take your hands off, creep!”

“As one of Pegasus’s Eliminators,” growled out the would-be soldier, “I am authorized to waylay anyone I please.” 

Now it was Keith’s turn to struggle, and Weevil grinned at the sight, despite the pain throbbing in his jaws. Rex’s moans quieted down as he, too, looked at the apprehension of his assailant.

“Eliminators? Don’t tell me he put in some opponents of his own to try and make it harder for us to get to the castle!”

“Mister Pegasus did exactly that. Perhaps if you had not gotten distracted out here, you would not be in my clutches. I’ll have to insist that you stop what you’re doing and have a duel with me.”

Keith swung his other fist at the Eliminator, who ducked just in time. “Are you serious? I have all ten star chips! Besides, I’ve beaten up guys who were bigger than me, and I can cream you, too!”

Still holding on to his face, Rex said, “He’s not lying, man!”

The Eliminator reached into the holster he wore and produced a thin black rod. He flicked a switch with his thumb, and the device crackled with electricity. “If he tries, I can stop him.”

As a skirmish began to unfold, Weevil nudged Rex. “What say we get out of here?”

“You don’t have to tell me.” 

They both stood up and continued on their path to the finals, clutching themselves where Keith had hit them.

* * *

For what felt like the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, Weevil and Rex sought out the remaining duelists and trounced them. The island felt empty compared to yesterday. Whereas eleven- and twelve-year-olds in sneakers swarmed the place like cockroaches twenty-four hours ago, what duelists were available today consisted of a slightly tougher breed of teenager—but none of them were tough enough to defeat Weevil or Rex.

“No!” cried a fourteen-year-old boy in cutoffs, sandals, and a sleeveless top as his Aqua Snake faded from the field and his life points dropped to zero. “How could you?”

“You made it easy for me,” said Weevil, making sure that the other guy noticed his grin of superiority. “Now hand over that star chip.”

Groaning, the chump scooped up the one star chip he deigned to risk, jumped down from the platform, walked over to Weevil’s side, and handed it to him, whereupon Weevil grabbed it with a snicker.

“Thank you. I’ll beat you any time you ask!”

“Have fun on the boat back home!” added Rex as the mark slunk off.

Weevil dismounted his platform and slid the star chip into the final slot. He held his gloved hand up to the sun, letting all ten golden pieces of triumph sparkle in the light. Glory reverberated in his chest, like the first notes of a joyful soprano aria waiting in an opera singer’s belly.

“Yesss, Rex! I have all ten star chips!”

“Awesome! And I have nine! I only have to get one more!”

“What are we waiting for? Let’s go find our last victim!”

But an hour later, they found no one. If the island seemed emptier this morning than it did the day before, it was truly empty of anyone but Weevil, Rex, and—Weevil strongly suspected—Yugi Muto, if not his friends. Now the pair stood in an open field again, with nobody but each other for company.

“You need one more star chip, Rex,” Weevil said.

Rex sighed. “No, I don’t. You duel instead of me.”

“But you agreed we’d face each other in the finals!”

“Look, I was all for that at the start of this tournament, but in case you haven’t noticed, just about every duelist is off the island now. Maybe I could’ve taken Bandit Keith in a fair duel, but he was about to clean our clocks. There’s no one to win last my star chip _from_. Besides”—he blushed—“I kinda wanna thank you.”

For some reason, Weevil’s heart started to flutter like a dancing moth. He tried to ignore the sensation as he asked, “What for?”

“Isn’t it obvious? For tryin’ to save me!”

“From Bandit Keith? You came to my rescue first!”

“Well…” Rex looked down and dragged his feet back and forth. If he meant to pretend that he wasn’t going to commit to the conversation, he didn’t succeed, because he looked in Weevil’s eyes and said, “You’ve got ten star chips and I don’t, and that makes which one of us gets to duel pretty obvious.”

“But—”

“Pfft. Weevil Underwood feelin’ bad about dueling in the final rounds of a tournament? I don’t believe it. If my sitting out of the finals still sticks in your chitinous craw after this is over, you can duel me again. We’ll work something out. Heck, even if you _don’t_ feel bad about it afterwards, I wanna duel you again.”

The idea of having a casual, post-tournament duel against Rex began to compensate for the knowledge that they wouldn’t face each other in the Duelist Kingdom finals. Why, exactly, Weevil couldn’t tell—it wasn’t like dueling someone for no stakes whatsoever was more exciting than competing when cash prizes and huge bragging rights were on the line. Then again, every duel assumed great significance to Weevil once he started playing. And he had a feeling that Rex would be his most significant opponent yet.

“All right. I’ll think of some way you can get in, even if you won’t be dueling.”

Rex rubbed his hands together. “Now you’re talking!”

“Being underhanded is useful in a pinch,” said Weevil, his own smile widening with Rex’s. “Stick with me, and you’ll see what I mean.”

“Oh, I’ll stick with you, Weevil.” He blinked a little faster, and his smile stayed on.

About half an hour later, they saw that magnificent white-brick castle looming at the top of a mountain. An imposing set of stairs was built into the hillside.

“Look, it’s the castle! We made it!” cried Rex.

“See, I told you we’d win! Now all we have to do is…walk…up…the stairs.”

They turned to each other and groaned.

After a painful ascent of the staircase, which had both short-legged boys gasping for air near the end, he and Rex finally reached their destination. Two other obstacles barred their entrance to the castle: a vaulted door and a pointy-haired man in a suit and pair of sunglasses. Weevil took a deep breath and heard Rex do the same.

“You _do_ have ten star chips, don’t you?” asked the suit. 

That was it? He wouldn’t greet them with an “Are you okay?” or a “Welcome, you must be tired” or even a “Hello?” It was time to get blunt.

“Of course I have ten star chips!” Weevil brandished his dueling glove and then plucked each star chip from its wrist, inserting them one by one into the appropriate slots around the door’s lock. Immediately, the lock sprung, and the door swung open. 

But before he could run inside, dragging Rex with him, the suit flung an arm in front of them both. “Not so fast! I asked you _both_ if you had ten star chips, and this hairy fella”—he pointed at Rex with his other hand—"looks like he’s only got nine!”

“Hey! I’m with him!” Rex protested.

“That means nothing. It’s ten star chips or no deal.”

This lunkhead presumed to block Rex when they had both come this far? It just wouldn’t do.

“Excuse me,” said Weevil, craning his neck to look the suit in the eye—or, rather, the darkened lens. “Don’t you know who I am? I’m Weevil Underwood, the most recent regional champion, and I see no reason why I can’t bring _one_ person with me!”

“Yeah, and I’m Rex Raptor, the runner-up! Weevil and me should be together!”

Something about the way Rex said that last sentence made Weevil wonder, but he decided not to address it.

“Kid, I don’t care if you’re the world’s top-ranked squash players,” said the suit. “You’ve gotta have those ten star chips.”

Then, Weevil had an idea. This obnoxious man could be bargained with, surely. Everybody had a price. With a thrill of venom in his heart, he took off his backpack, set it on the ground, and reached into one of the front pockets.

“What are you doing?” 

“Yeah, what’s going on, Weeves?”

Weevil pulled out his wallet, a plain green billfold with a photo ID in the middle, and removed a few paper notes. He waved the money in the suit’s face, and even the sunglasses failed to obscure his look of fascination.

“Will this be enough to buy an exception to the rules?” Weevil asked in the sweetest voice he could muster.

The suit started blushing, but after a few seconds, he snatched the bills from Weevil’s hand. “Yes! I think it will! Go on in. The arena’s through the first door at the end of the hall and up the staircase to your left.”

“Good. I knew you’d see things my way.” Weevil returned his wallet to its proper place in his backpack, which he then hoisted back onto his shoulders. He looked at Rex, whose mouth opened in a gaping smile.

“Close your mouth or you’ll catch flies,” said Weevil, thumbing at the open door.

“You _would_ put it like that. Matter of fact, you’d think that was cool if it happened to you. Hey, maybe it already has!” 

They both entered the castle, striding into an empty room carpeted in red. When they reached the staircase the guard mentioned, they looked at each other and gritted their teeth before setting foot upon it. 

Eventually, they made it onto an oddly built level of the castle that consisted of a huge, mostly empty chamber with a Duel Ring in the center surrounded on either side by a railed balcony. 

Another uniformed man, also wearing sunglasses, approached Weevil and Rex as they entered. 

“You must be Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice.

“Oh, do you recognize us from the regional tournament?” asked Weevil.

“I do, as does Mister Pegasus.”

Ah, so Pegasus _did_ acknowledge them! Despite all his anti-Pegasus rambling, Rex smiled to hear that, just like Weevil.

The employee continued, “You are the first to arrive, and the final duels have yet to begin officially, but please bide your time in here until the other contestants appear.”

“You mean we have to just stand here?” Rex asked.

“Don’t be ungrateful, Rex,” said Weevil. “I’m sure the rule is in place for a reason.”

“Indeed,” said the besuited man. “Mister Pegasus insists that all guests be present in this room for the entertainment he has planned.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Rex.

“I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough,” replied Weevil, though he sympathized with Rex’s impatience.

The man in sunglasses nodded. “Our sources suggest that the prelude to the final duels may commence sooner than we originally anticipated. You will not suffer an unbearably long wait. In the meantime, we recommend that you sort through your decks in preparation for tomorrow.” He walked away, leaving Weevil and Rex alone.

Neither of them spoke for a short time. Eventually, Rex broke the silence.

“So, uh…what do we do now? I’m not gonna be competing, so there’s no point in preparing my deck.”

“You want that prize money, too, don’t you? We can discuss how to make _my_ deck stronger.” 

“Well, if that’s what you want. At least it’ll give me more of a challenge the next time we—"

A brief glance at the lower level revealed something Weevil hadn’t noticed before: a tall brunet in a dark blue school uniform, carrying a briefcase. Among Duel Monsters fans, that man was unmistakable.

“Not now. Look, it’s Seto Kaiba!”

“Whoa,” said Rex. “It is. What’s he doing here? Was he invited? Did you see him on the boat?”

“No. Did you?”

They didn’t have time to finish their conversation. Just as the discussion turned to whether or not the finalists would have to duel Kaiba as a surprise hindrance, the people Weevil simultaneously most wanted and dreaded to see walked onto the balcony: Yugi Muto and Joey Wheeler, along with Mai Valentine and the guys and girl from the woods.

Like the overly friendly sort he was, Yugi offered a greeting. “Rex Raptor and Weevil Underwood! It’s funny seeing you again.”

Mai pointed at Rex. “What are you doing here? I wouldn’t have expected you to win enough star chips to make the finals.”

Unsurprisingly, Wheeler made matters worse. 

“Yeah, after I trounced your saurian hide, you should’ve been on the boat back home!”

“Joey, you don’t have to rub it in,” said the brown-haired girl in a tone just shy of exasperation.

Now they’d done it. Weevil opened his mouth to snap at the gloating numbskull, but Rex balled his hands into fists and shouted at the two insensitive blonds first.

“I’ll say you don’t have to rub it in! For your information, I almost won ten star chips, but we were out of duelists to beat and just about out of time to come here.”

“I’m dueling for both of us,” Weevil added.

“Mm. Now that should be something to see,” said Mai.

The guy in the trench coat offered his opinion. “If you’re as good here as you were in that other tournament, I gotta agree with Mai.”

A brief moment of internal beaming on Weevil’s part came to an abrupt end when the gravel-throated man reappeared.

“Pegasus is quite taken with all of your dueling talents. In fact, he’s so impressed that he decided to reward you with some entertainment.”

Mai commented that Pegasus was surely trying to intimidate them.

“What duelist wouldn’t find Pegasus’s skill intimidating?” asked Weevil. “He has to be the best there is.”

With another slight scowl, Rex asked, “Is that why Kaiba’s here? Pegasus invited him to show off his own prowess in front of everyone?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” said the besuited man.

The white-haired boy turned to Rex and said, “Something strange went on between Pegasus and the Kaiba brothers shortly before now.”

As if on cue, Pegasus himself strode onto the platform. Weevil tried to calm the butterflies in his stomach as he watched his idol in motion.

“So, they’re settling the score down there?” asked Rex.

Yugi’s most delicate friend shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Listen.”

The conversation below struck Weevil as more than a little strange. Pegasus said something about… _kidnapping Kaiba’s brother_ and taking control of Kaiba Corp?

“No!” cried Weevil. “This can’t be right! Mister Pegasus, you can’t have abducted anyone!” 

“It looks like he can,” said the guy in the trench coat. “Kaiba’s little brother didn’t invite himself here, you know.”

But Pegasus and Kaiba continued talking as if they’d heard nothing. Kaiba produced a disc-shape contraption and insisted that Pegasus use it to duel him. Pegasus took it and acted like he didn’t know how to operate it, even rolling it on the floor. Who could blame him? The device was brand new.

Then Pegasus called for the “lad who would be his pawn,” and two of the men in suits brought out a preteen boy with shaggy black hair. He moved robotically toward the center of the room, holding one of the disc-shaped devices in his hands.

Part of Weevil wanted to inquire about the boy’s identity—was the guy in the trench coat right?—but he didn’t want to be thought a fool. But the conversation between Pegasus and Kaiba answered his question: the younger boy was _indeed_ Seto Kaiba’s brother, and the duel was to be fought over him. Eventually, Kaiba reluctantly agreed to abandon the disc-shaped device and play using the Duel Ring that Pegasus himself had built. Both duelists took their places on their respective sides of the field, and Weevil’s heart pounded with pride in Pegasus.

At first, the duel looked one-sided in Kaiba’s favor. Kaiba played Rude Kaiser, a muscled bipedal lizard in medieval-looking armor, and Pegasus summoned Parrot Dragon, a cartoonish creature with a parrot’s upper half and a dragon’s lower half. The latter monster had higher attack points, but Kaiba took away that advantage with a magic card.

“Come on, Pegasus!” cried Weevil. “You can beat him! He’s good, but he’s not as good as you!”

Pegasus appeared not to hear Weevil, but Rex grabbed Weevil’s shoulder, making him jump slightly.

“Don’t cheer on Pegasus,” he whisper-shouted. 

The tide of the duel started to turn. A few cards later, Pegasus not only seized control of Pegasus’s Blue-Eyes White Dragon but announced, “Welcome, Kaiba…to Toon World!”

A cloud of dust rose out of nowhere onto Pegasus’s side of the field. In a moment, the cloud faded away, revealing a cartoonish-looking green pop-up book suspended in midair…and nothing else. The book opened to a spread of a medieval castle, but the Dark Rabbit that Pegasus had summoned was nowhere to be seen.

But that didn't last long. Shortly after disappearing, Dark Rabbit sprang out of the pop-up book, launching himself at Kaiba’s side of the field. Kaiba’s Battle Ox appeared only for the rabbit to punch him into nothingness.

Matters became even weirder when, a few cards after _that_ , the Blue-Eyes White Dragon turned into a tiny, grotesquely big-eyed version of itself. The design resembled what would happen if Blue-Eyes visited the caricature booth at a carnival.

From then on, Pegasus dominated the duel. Kaiba summoned a second Blue-Eyes and declared an attack, but the Toon Dragon stretched its body to one side and _evaded_ the White Lightning blast.

“Did you see that?” said Rex with a gasp. “That cartoon dragon just sidestepped the attack! What kind of monster can do that?”

“Pegasus’s monsters can, obviously! He created cards that would make him invincible!” Part of Weevil had to admire Pegasus’s audacity, but at the same time, this match boded badly for his own chances against his idol. And he had to admit that this level of unfairly tilting the odds in one’s own favor was probably going too far…

Although Kaiba continued to strike back, even playing a trap card that bound the Toon Dragon in chains and let his own Blue-Eyes destroy it, Pegasus eventually beat him with some bizarre cartoon monsters and fiendish spells and traps. Weevil made a mental note to add Shadow Spell, clearly Kaiba’s best spell card other than Crush Card of Destruction, to his own collection as Kaiba’s life points dropped to zero and the holograms faded away.

Then, something weirder than Weevil had ever imagined happened before his eyes. 

Pegasus said, “You’ve lost much more than just this duel, haven’t you, Kaiba? You’ve lost the only chance you had at rescuing your baby brother! You let him down…but don’t worry, my dear friend. I will spare you the agony of carrying on this world without him.” From his lapel, he produced a card and held it up.

“What is that?” Kaiba gasped.

“It is the final fate of your soul, Seto Kaiba!” 

A flash of yellow light burst from Pegasus’s face, and Kaiba cried out in pain and horror. When his scream stopped, his head slumped downward, as if Kaiba had taken a sudden interest in his shoes. Pegasus produced another card from his pocket and looked at the two cards together.

“Ah, the brothers Kaiba, one in each hand! But even though your cards are so very close, your souls have never been further apart! At least when I had Mokuba locked up, you were still living within the same dimension…but now, you’re worlds apart!”

One of the besuited men emerged from the doorway on Kaiba’s side of the arena and walked up to his motionless body. Pegasus gestured at his employee.

“Take away that empty shell,” he said. “Teach it to wash dishes or something.”

“Okay, tell me I didn’t just see what I think I saw,” said Wheeler as the suit dragged Kaiba’s motionless body away from the Duel Ring.

Weevil stood there and blinked. For once, Wheeler had taken the words right out of his mouth, which now hung open. This scene couldn’t be real. It had to be a trick. That employee said the match was an “entertainment.” What just happened had to be an elaborate performance that Pegasus and Kaiba had agreed upon earlier. Stealing people’s souls from their bodies didn’t sound possible, and even if it were, Pegasus couldn’t do it. This was all a play or something. But if what Pegasus just did to Kaiba was an act of stage craft, why did Yugi and his friends seem shocked and horrified by it? They couldn’t all think it really happened. Even if Pegasus _could_ steal people’s souls, he wouldn’t. 

Would he?

Someone tapped Weevil on the shoulder.

“What do you—oh, it’s you, Rex.”

“Yep, it’s me, all right. Everyone else just left for dinner. If you’re as hungry as me, you’ll join ‘em.” The look on Rex’s face implied that he thought waiting for Weevil to stop staring into space was a sacrifice. Clearly, Rex would rather barrel toward the dining room like a _Velociraptor_ that just saw a tiny mammal.

“Oh…yes.” Weevil tugged on his coat collar. “Let’s go eat.”

As Rex put his arm around Weevil’s shoulder and let him out the room, he said, “I knew you’d snap out of it. I’m so hungry I could eat a _Styracosaurus_ , horns and all. Aren’t you?”

“Sure.” Dinosaur references lacked arthropods’ ease of being worked into conversation, but drat if Rex didn’t make those dinosaur name-drops charming. “Let’s just hope those lunkheads haven’t eaten all the food.”

* * *

Luckily, the lunkheads who watched Pegasus duel Kaiba left plenty of food on the dining-room table. Both Weevil and Rex enjoyed a lavish dinner, which was all the more delicious and satisfying for the scarcity they had endured during the past day and a half. While Weevil supped on combinations of cheese, salad, tomatoes, and bread with a slice of chocolate cake, Rex sank his teeth into the offerings of chicken, ham, and beef, which he topped off with a few cubes of gelatin. Like everyone else, they helped themselves to the soup; unlike some of the other guests, including Rex, Weevil’s soup had a golden metallic eye in it. When he stopped squawking at the sight and cracked the eye open, he revealed a slip of paper bearing the letter C, which, according to the gravelly-voiced man’s announcement, meant that he would duel Joey Wheeler the next day.

Perfect. Taking Mai down a peg would have served as a nice bonus on the way to victory, but ultimately, it would be better to defeat Wheeler without any preamble. Mai didn’t stand a chance against Yugi anyway, and once Weevil faced Yugi…well, maybe Weevil would have thought of a way to stop Exodia by then. 

After a perfunctory exchange of polite good-nights with the other duelists and their hangers-on, Weevil and Rex left the dining room and began looking for sleeping quarters.

“Hey, do you mind if we share a room again? I’m getting to like it.”

So was Weevil, but something told him not to admit it. With an exaggerated sigh, he replied, “I _guess_ , but only if we find a room with two beds.”

Rex pumped his fist. “Oh, boy!”

Locating a room with two beds didn’t take very long. All it took was a brief walk down the hall, and Weevil led Rex into a room furnished with two beds, a coffee table, a Persian rug, and a built-in bathroom. Right away, Rex leapt to the bed on the far side of the chamber and began removing his shoes.

“ _You_ don’t waste any time preparing for bed,” said Weevil.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Rex removed his hat and vest and pulled his shirt off. What havoc this action wreaked on his hair would have made Weevil laugh if not for Rex’s next words: “I spent last night on the floor of a cave, so I wanna get real comfy tonight as quick as possible. And I wouldn’t have had to sleep in a cave last night if Pegasus could be trusted!”

The reflex to issue a stinging retort lashed against Weevil’s heart and mind. This time, he couldn’t bring himself to give in to the impulse.

“If Pegasus didn’t care about our welfare, he wouldn’t have set that lavish dinner for us. We had plenty of food to choose from! Clearly, he didn’t spare any expense there. Well, I would have liked more vegetarian options…but that’s beside the point.”

“What _is_ your point?”

“My point is, why do you keep insulting Pegasus?” As he spoke, Weevil tried to avert his eyes from Rex’s lightly hairy chest and belly.

“Why do _you_ keep defending him? Think about it. Even if he’d hosted the tournament in a five-star bed and breakfast with color TVs and hot tubs, he still admitted to kidnapping a kid, and he just did some weird supernatural thing to Kaiba. Aren’t you starting to suspect that maybe he’s not such a good guy?”

Apparently not expecting an answer, Rex continued, “Yeah, that dinner was pretty awesome, I’ll admit. Hey, do you eat anything other than those protein bars? What kind of food do you like best?”

Since he had nothing to lose by telling the truth this time, Weevil said, “Fried bee larvae.”

“Whoa, dude! That’s pretty exotic…and it’s not vegetarian.” Rex chuckled. “You ever feel like gorging yourself on something really savory?”

“Like what? You mean like the food you sucked down tonight?”

“You know, something like finger-lickin’ fried chicken. Or _grilled_ chicken, maybe, like in a sandwich. Ooh, or burgers! Yeah, a big double-decker bacon cheeseburger with grilled onions would be great.” He licked his lips and rubbed that downy potbelly of his. “Or maybe the bacon could be on the fries. Mmm, bacon fries and onion rings—and a chocolate milkshake…” Now he closed his eyes. “Of course, my favorite is fried octopus...”

“Enough!” Weevil pounded his fist on his mattress. “You’re an insatiable carnivore.”

Rex opened his eyes and grinned. “But it’s better for me to talk about food than Pegasus, right?”

“I meant, enough talk about food. If we’re going to discuss anything, it should be dueling strategies. Our revenge is on Joey Wheeler. What kind of cards does he play?”

“He uses warriors, beast-warriors, that Baby Dragon and Time Wizard combo, and…well, _you_ know.” He didn’t need to explain what he meant.

“If I defeat Joey Wheeler, you’ll get your Red-Eyes back. Ooh! And if I defeat Pegasus, I’ll tell him to set the Kaiba brothers free…if they are, in fact, in any sort of danger. He’ll have to listen to a big fan of his, won’t he?”

Instead of answering, Rex just snickered.

“Why are you laughing?”

“‘Cause I don’t think Pegasus cares what his fans have to say to him. You saw him. He does whatever he wants.”

“Come on, Rex.” Weevil folded his arms. “You can’t really believe that he stole Kaiba’s soul. That doesn’t seem possible.”

“I dunno,” said Rex, crossing one of his legs over his knee. “It sure looked real to me.”

This conversation was not going as Weevil desired. “We’re wasting time talking about that. What’s really important is how to assemble my deck.”

“You’re right. If you wanna take my advice, how about ditching Basic Insect?”

“But that’s how I lure my opponents into a false sense of security!”

“Yeah, but even among insect cards, you can do better than Basic Insect. I mean, five hundred attack points? When I dueled Joey Wheeler, he didn’t use any monsters with less than, like, eleven hundred. His strategy was a lot like mine, only worse.”

Those words promised much.

“How do you mean?”

“He was all about big, strong monsters, which I’m totally for—but he won by dumb luck. If it wasn’t for that lucky turn with Time Wizard…” His voice began to rise. “I’d still have my Red-Eyes!”

Jeez, would he never stop talking about that card? On the other hand, if someone stole Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth, Weevil wouldn’t forgive that person for at least five years.

“Well, I can see the advantage in replacing Basic Insect with something stronger…but surely I need to add or change some spells or traps…”

By the time the discussion wound down, Weevil had switched out his weakest monster for a stronger but still disarmingly weak alternative, and some of his spell and trap cards differed from those he used to win the preliminary duels. 

Forty-five minutes later, when each boy had showered and then changed into his pajamas, Weevil and Rex turned the lights off and settled into their separate beds. As Weevil pulled the covers over his body, Rex, who tucked his beanie under his arm rather than putting the hat on the bedside table, asked, “You know, uh…I really like dueling you. Can we, like…keep doing it? Even if you don’t win, I still wanna get together and duel.”

“Don’t say ‘even if you don’t win’! I went into this tournament fully prepared to win! And _you_ helped me.”

“Oh, I’m not saying I think you’ll lose. It’s just…I hope we can duel after the tournament a lot more often. Actually, can we…meet up a bunch of times, even if we’re not dueling?”

How Rex proposed that they do that, he didn’t say. But it wouldn’t hurt to have what Weevil had to admit was a friend. …Was “friend” the absolute best word to use?

Blushing at least as fiercely as he had when Pegasus handed him the trophy, Weevil said, “We’ll see!” 

As he turned over in bed, he thought he heard Rex chuckling.

* * *

The next morning, Rex slept in slightly longer than expected. When Weevil finally dragged him out of bed and waited for him to finish getting dressed, they were both a few minutes late to see Yugi duel Mai Valentine.

“Mai’s so smug,” growled Rex as he watched the duel. “But Yugi’s just so…so…”

“What does it matter? Nothing about this duel will get you your Red-Eyes back.”

They tried to focus on the action in front of them, but Wheeler glanced in their direction and said, “You want your Red-Eyes back, Rex? Sorry, but I won that card fair and square.”

“I know!” snapped Rex. “Shut up!” 

“There’s no need to be rude,” said the girl. 

“Yes, there is,” Rex insisted. “We’re all rivals here.”

But the brunette wouldn’t give up. “Rivals can still be polite to one another. They can even be _friends_ with one another.”

“Yeah, that’s right!” echoed the guy with the pointy brown hair.

“This isn’t worth listening to,” said Weevil. “Let’s just watch the duel.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

If any of Yugi’s cheerleaders took offense at these words, they didn’t say so.

Mai Valentine fought valiantly, using her familiar Harpie Lady combo and bringing out the Harpies’ Pet Dragon for reinforcements. A lesser duelist would have fallen before the Cyber Shield-clad, Rose Whip-wielding trio of harpies, their dragon, and the infernal wall that rendered attacks worse than useless. As Weevil expected, though, Yugi used formidable monsters like Summoned Skull and Dark Magician and some ingeniously deployed magic and trap cards. Ultimately, of course, Yugi summoned Exodia, who obliterated everything on Mai’s side of the field and won the duel for him instantly. Without saying a word, Mai gathered her cards, got up, and left the arena.

“The first match of these playoffs has come to a close,” croaked the announcer as the computerized display screen showed Mai’s picture going dark. “Yugi Muto has emerged victorious over Mai Valentine. He will advance to the next round.”

Yugi’s friends congratulated him, and Weevil and Rex exchanged grimaces…until Pegasus started applauding.

“Well done, Yugi. Superb duel. You certainly know how to put on a good show.”

You did have to hand _that_ to Yugi. Anyone who dueled him multiple times would probably get tired of the Exodia-driven finale after a while, but what he pulled with Dark Magician and those spells and traps was pretty impressive.

“What a creep!” said the pointy-haired guy. 

What was wrong with these people? Did they genuinely believe that Pegasus had stolen the Kaiba brothers’ souls? They would have to explain that to him thoroughly. Or did he think that only because he didn’t trust them? 

In any case, the announcer’s voice got his attention.

“Joey Wheeler will battle Weevil Underwood. You have fifteen minutes to prepare your decks.”

While Wheeler expressed rightful concern over this amount of time and received encouragement from his friends, Weevil pulled his own deck out of his pocket. He sifted through the cards until Rex told him, “Dude, I don’t think looking at the cards for the sixty-five millionth time is gonna help any.”

That was easy for Rex to say. He wasn’t going to compete, after all. He was just going to share the prize with Weevil without participating in the finals.

Wishing he could feel angrier about that than he did, Weevil looked through his deck again and again, second- and third-guessing himself about this card and that. Did he have too many spells or traps? Did he have too _few_ spells or traps? Were his monsters too weak? Were they too strong to trick Wheeler into complacency? 

These thoughts pounded in his head as he descended to the lower level and took his place on one side of the Duel Ring. The blond clown walked up to the opposite side, wearing a tense expression.

Before Weevil knew it, that croaking voice declared, “Joey Wheeler and Weevil Underwood, your peers and gracious host await your bout. Let the duel commence!”

Weevil’s console beeped, telling him to go first. Excellent. The first turn was, if not vital, then ideal for setting a trap. Duelists who craved the second turn possessed reactive minds. No doubt Wheeler did.

“I summon Big Insect in attack mode!” said Weevil, playing a card.

A giant ant appeared on his side of the field.

“And I set these two cards face-down. I end my turn.”

Wheeler scratched his neck. “I can take care of that monster easily. I summon Axe Raider in attack mode!”

An orange-skinned muscleman wearing scanty red-and-gold armor and a purple loincloth appeared on the field. This warrior, a monster used by many of the ill-fated contestants in the preliminary duels, carried a golden axe in his right hand.

“Axe Raider, attack!”

The warrior raced toward Big Insect, and Weevil’s heart filled with glee.

“Activate trap!”

The swirling vortex of Infinite Dismissal immediately captured Axe Raider, imprisoning him within its deadly winds, as it had done to Two-Headed King Rex not long ago.

And it was Rex who first commented on the situation.

“Didn’t you watch the regional championship, Wheeler? That’s the same trap card he used on me.”

The guy in the trenchcoat said, “Yeah, Joey. You can do better than that.”

“Come on, Joey!” said the girl. “Don’t let this one mistake get you down!”

Whether Wheeler internalized his friends’ words or not Weevil neither knew nor cared. His only interest was in watching Joey’s face fall as he sighed, “I end my turn.”

Well, that and what Rex had to say next, whatever it was.

“Rex is right! If you remembered that duel, you’d also expect this. I summon Petit Moth in defense mode…I equip Big Insect with Insect Armor with Laser Cannon!”

Big Insect now sported a thin metal cannon mounted on a pack of armor. Next to the giant ant appeared a much smaller caterpillar-like creature, green of hide and imploring in its expression.

“Attack, Big Insect!”

A green laser beam shot out of Big Insect’s cannon, incinerating the vortex-bound Axe Raider and subtracting 400 from Wheeler’s life points.

“Now, I set a card face down and end my turn.”

Though the duel had just started, Wheeler already begun to quicken his breathing. This was an opportunity for fun.

“What’s got you bugged, Wheeler? Are you thinking of surrendering right here and now?”

“You wish, creepy-crawly. I summon Giltia the Knight in attack mode!”

A grim-faced knight in green armor appeared on Wheeler’s side of the field. 

“And I set this card face down. Now, Giltia, attack Petit Moth!”

Bingo.

“I activate a face-down card: Chasm of Spikes! Say good night to your knight!”

A spiked pit opened spontaneously on the field, and the knight fell into it, impaling himself bloodlessly on the way to slice up Weevil’s baby grub. Weevil snickered.

“Dang!” said Wheeler. “You’re laying so many traps that I can’t even squash a bug! How’m I supposed to swat those pests if my every move gets blocked?”

The peanut gallery above must not have thought Wheeler’s question was rhetorical, because Yugi said, “Traps can be broken, Joey!”

Wheeler smiled. “That’s right. Guess I just gotta wait for the right time. I end my turn.”

The next card Weevil drew looked promising, so he set it face down. More importantly, now began the moment he waited for since the beginning of the tournament.

“I equip Petit Moth with the Cocoon of Evolution!”

A great, pink squirming cocoon enveloped Petit Moth, and Weevil allowed himself some loud cackling. Rex flashed him a tooth-baring grin, which he took as an affirmation.

“In five turns the Cocoon of Evolution will open to reveal the greatest of all insects, Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth! You won’t stand a chance against the lord of lepidopterans! I’m ending my turn now, but just you wait, you’ll be drowning in pollen!”

“Not if I can squash that thing before it gets big and nasty. I summon Garoozis in attack mode!”

A bipedal lizard-man in shiny blue-gray armor appeared on the field. 

“And I equip him with Kunai with Chain, raising his attack by five hundred!”

Garoozis now sported a three-pronged blade on a length of chain…but the card Weevil had just prepared him for these circumstances.

“Attack the Cocoon, Garoozis!”

“I activate Remove Trap!”

One of the face-down cards on Weevil’s side of the field flipped up, and Garoozis lost his chained weapon. The lizard warrior ran up to the Cocoon but smacked against it and shattered, taking 200 more of Wheeler’s life points.

Naturally, the guy in the trenchcoat commented on this. “You can’t keep letting him use your tactics against you, man!”

The girl added, “Weevil’s not just attacking Joey; he’s countering him during his own attacks.”

“That’s a pretty ingenious strategy to use on Joey,” said the trenchcoated guy. “He can’t resist an opportunity to declare an attack.”

Rex snapped, “Is there anything wrong with that?”

“There is in Duel Monsters,” said the delicate guy. “Relying solely on head-on attacks is never a good idea.”

Someone in that crowd had to be correct about at least _one_ thing.

“Right,” Yugi agreed. “The element of surprise is huge in Duel Monsters. Head-on attacks are the most straightforward move you can make. If you don’t have any subtlety, your opponent will outsmart you.”

And Yugi was right about that, too.

“Didn’t you hear your friend, Wheeler?” Weevil pointed at his adversary. “According to him, I’m outsmarting you!”

“Yugi would never believe that I’d lose to you, no matter what he says! He knows me better than anyone, and he also knows that even if my opponent is a tricky, trap-setting web-weaver, I can still win. You’ll see, starting with my next turn!”

This situation was too good. Wheeler was at 1600 life points, and Weevil’s sat fully and comfortably at 2000. Sure, the lead was slight, but the feeling of a possible early win made his heart flutter, especially knowing that Pegasus observed him. “I summon Hercules Beetle in attack mode!”

A handsome giant stag beetle took to the field.

“And I equip him with some cannon armor as well!”

Another cannon armor plate covered Hercules Beetle’s back.

“I end my turn.”

How could Wheeler possibly protect his monsters from two supercharged insects? They were stronger than almost anything in Wheeler’s deck—and Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth hadn’t even hatched yet! The blond doofus would be helpless then.

…However, that satisfied grin that Wheeler pulled when he drew his next card indicated otherwise.

“Awright, Underwood. I’ve been givin’ you your way so far, but now, your pests are gonna get pummeled! I summon Baby Dragon in attack mode!”

A big-eyed orange dragon with an oddly defined chest appeared on the field. The reptilian cooed in a way that suggested infancy.

“But wait, there’s more! I play the Time Wizard!”

Groans from Rex and cheers from everyone else rang from the balcony as the face-down card on Wheeler’s side of the field turned over, summoning the most comical-looking creature Weevil had seen yet. Floating in midair was a spherical clock with eyes, arms, and legs. The timepiece wore a cape and top hat and carried a staff surmounted by a roulette wheel.

“Go, Time Wizard!” Wheeler ordered. “Time Roulette!”

The little arrow on the clock-magician’s wheel started to spin rapidly. A hush fell over the room, as if watching a wheel turn were the most exciting thing that these people had ever witnessed during a duel.

Finally, the arrow stopped, and Time Wizard cried “Time Magic! Time Magic!” in its mechanical voice.

“Way to go, Time Wizard!” shouted Wheeler, the jubilant shrieks of his friends backing him up. “Your bugs are about to be exterminated, creepo!”

A vortex opened in the atmosphere—not a whirlwind like Infinite Dismissal but a phenomenon like a naked singularity, warping everything on the field into unrecognizable exaggerations and patterns. When the blurring of time and space ended, Baby Dragon had disappeared. In its place stood an aged, quadrupedal dragon with deep brown skin, bushy eyebrows, and a serious countenance.

“Thousand Dragon here’ll take your bugs and pin ‘em on the wall!”

At 2400 attack points, Thousand Dragon would have cut a formidable figure…if not for the magisterial massive moth that beat its wings high above the Cocoon of Evolution, which lay split open on the field. The creature was a hologram, but Weevil swore he could feel pollen drifting off its body and onto his hair, as if his signature monster had just feasted on a flower.

“Whoa, I think I saw that thing fight Godzilla!” said the tall guy with the pointy hair.

“Bwa-ha-ha! You’ve gift-wrapped my victory, Wheeler!” Honestly, how thoughtless could a duelist be? “By speeding up time, you’ve summoned Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth in much less time than I would have! And your monsters may be stronger than most insects, but my moth is stronger than almost any monster!”

A look of fear that made Wheeler appear even stupider than before spread over his face. But Yugi interrupted:

“Don’t worry, Joey! Take another look at that moth!”

Those words made Weevil’s stomach lurch. Trying not to quiver, he looked at Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth again and gasped.

The once-vibrant colors on the moth’s body had become pale. Its wings, once full, now began to wither and thin. Even its antennae drooped. Worst of all, a glance at the console’s data screen revealed that the poor moth’s attack points had dropped from 3500 to 2500, and its defense points had somehow decreased to a mere 1900.

“How can this be happening?” he asked in a shakier voice than he intended.

“Yeah!” said Rex. “What did you do to his moth, Wheeler?”  
Evidently, the musclehead who played the combo that weakened the precious moth didn’t have an answer for that, because Yugi explained it.

“Insects have a limited life span,” he said, as if no bug enthusiast were in the room with him. “Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth is easily one of the strongest monsters in the whole game, but even it couldn’t survive a thousand-year time warp with its point totals intact. Its defense must have suffered more than its attack because as the moth aged, it became more mindless, like a zombie that only attacks and has no preservation instinct. If most other insect monsters were subjected to Time Wizard’s magic, they’d shrivel into nothing.”

That could only mean…

Weevil gasped again when he looked at his other two monsters. Big Insect and Hercules Beetle now lay sprawled on the field, just barely moving their heads as their bodies sagged under the weight of their cannon armor. The armor itself might have been all that gave them any attack points, which now sat at a miserable 700 apiece.

“Dragons get stronger with time,” boasted Wheeler, “but nothing ages worse than a bug. Thousand Dragon, attack Hercules Beetle! Noxious Nostril Gust!”

The elderly dragon snorted a cloud of smoke that vaporized Hercules Beetle, leaving Weevil with 300 wretched life points.

“No!” he yelled. “My beautiful beetle! I was close to keeping all my bugs alive!”

“Eh, if it means that much to you, I’ll end my turn.”

Weevil stifled his hiss as he drew his next card. Drat. De-Spell wouldn’t do him any good right now. If nothing else, maybe it would make a decent bluff. 

“I set a card face down and switch Big Insect to defense mode…and end my turn.”

“Back to me!” said Wheeler. When he drew his next card, that dopey smirk of his became even more infuriating. “Heh heh…I was gonna attack your defense-mode ant, but this is way better. Shield and Sword!”  
Every monster’s attack and defense points reversed. Poor Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth’s attack points dropped to 1900, while Thousand Dragon’s attack was also reduced—to 2000.

“You might be thinkin’, ‘That Joey Wheeler’s a bonehead, lowerin’ his own monster’s attack points.’ But this move is exactly what I need to win this duel. Thousand Dragon, attack Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth!”

Nothing happened.

“Huh?” Wheeler asked. “What’s up with this?”

Oh, how rich. For all his blather, Wheeler didn’t have the smarts or the instinct to account for this.

“Your dragon is an earthbound monster,” Weevil pointed out. “Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth can fly. It can’t be hit by any attack from a land-dweller.”

“…Huh. Dang it. Guess my turn’s over, then.” Wheeler sighed and looked at his deck.

Weevil drew a Negate Attack, but it served no immediate purpose. All that he needed this turn was right there on the field.

“First, I flip over a face-down card. Activate De-Spell! Your Shield and Sword is rendered null and void!”

The point totals reversed again, restoring Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth to 2500 attack points and Thousand Dragon to 2400. That was good enough for the short term.

“My moth still has the reach to hit your dragon, Wheeler! Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth, attack!”

As it did to many unlucky warriors in the preliminaries, Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth beat its wings, sending up gale-force winds that tore Thousand Dragon apart and cost Wheeler a hundred life points.  
“I end my turn!”

Thus began a string of good fortune for Weevil. Turn after turn, Wheeler played a monster in defense mode, and Great Moth blew them away. One crouching, earthbound creature after another exploded into nothing. He tried to play a monster in attack mode and destroy the weakened Big Insect, but Weevil eliminated that possibility with a trap card.

“All _riiiight_!” called Rex. “You’ve got him cornered! Keep it up, Weeves!”

The tall guy in the trenchcoat just wouldn’t let Weevil soak in the affirmation. “Don’t listen to that bronto-buffoon, Joey! You can make a comeback. I just know it!”

Neither would the girl. “Yeah! You beat Rex already, Joey, what does _he_ know?”

“Hey! You take that back!” growled Rex.

And of course, Yugi had to chime in, though without responding to Rex directly. “Joey, hang in there! It may look bleak now, but I’d bet my life you’ll win this duel!”

The white-haired one didn’t say anything. Maybe he was hiding something. Well, anyone who was about to duel Pegasus had nothing to hide, and it was time Wheeler knew it. Actually, in this case, there _was_ something to hide, but Wheeler wasn’t about to know _that_.

“Face it, Joey Wheeler, your friends are wrong,” said Weevil. “You’ve lost. Without any monsters that can attack my Great Moth, you might as well surrender.”

Rather than issuing some wisecrack, Wheeler leaned against his console and bowed his head. His shoulders began to tremble. Wait a minute—was Wheeler about to cry? Kids bursting into tears when he trounced them was one thing, but making a big guy like him break down was new. How should Weevil feel about this?

His opponent’s little buddy answered that question all of a sudden.

“Remember, Joey, you _do_ have a monster that can fly!” cried Yugi.

With a confused expression, Wheeler looked up from his console. His gaze shifted to his deck. “Huh?”

The girl joined in the cheering. “Yeah! Joey, there’s a monster in your deck that can beat that thing!” She flashed a thumbs-up sign in Wheeler’s direction.

The guy with the pointy hair evidently grasped what his friends were saying, too. “Think about _why_ you’re doing this, bro!”

“That’s right!” the girl added. “You have too much at stake to lose to an insect nut!”

Finally, Rex turned to shout at Wheeler’s support group. “Would you all just _shut up_?” 

Just as Weevil felt a spark of vindication ignite in his heart, Rex’s face grew pale. “Wait a second…oh, no, you don’t mean…” His mouth opened as if in dawning horror.

Now Weevil’s hands started to sweat. Wheeler’s pals repeating pithy catch phrases and platitudes to try to cheer him up in a moment of weakness was nothing new, but if Rex looked horrified, that was worth worrying about.

“It’s all in the heart of the cards, Joey!” said Yugi. “I can feel it guiding you to victory!”

Wheeler closed his eyes and inhaled. Keeping his eyes shut, he extended his arm and drew a card. Then a big, stupid smile stretched across his face.

“A-HA! Now I get what you were talkin’ about up there!” He winked at Yugi, who gave him a thumbs-up sign, just like the girl. 

“All right, Underwood,” Wheeler threatened. “Get ready to get rocked!” 

Rex cried, “I’m sorry, Weevil!”

Wheeler slapped a card down on his console, and a massive vision of black spikiness appeared on the field.

“Say hello to Red-Eyes Black Dragon! He can take to the sky as easy as your moth!”

With a flapping of its wings, the dragon lifted itself into the air, just as Weevil’s heart sank into the pit of his stomach.

“But—but—your dragon has a lower attack than my moth!”

“Oh, yeah? I’m equippin’ him with Dragon Nails, which gives him seven hundred more attack points!”

It was all over. 

“Now, Red-Eyes! Inferno Fire Blast!”

The dragon opened its mouth and shot a ball of fire at the moth, incinerating it and taking all of Weevil’s remaining life points

Squeezing his eyes shut, Weevil fell to his knees.

All that strategizing. All that dueling. All those hopes and schemes and plans. All for nothing.

He must have stood at the arena for longer than he realized, because he eventually heard the announcer say, “Will all duelists please clear the arena for the final duel?”

There was no choice but to stand up and try not to cry. Wheeler had left the Duel Ring and was probably back in his bedroom, gloating. The rest of the cheering squad stood on the balcony, along with Rex, who looked forlorn.

“You know, Weevil,” Yugi called, “your strategy is more like mine than I would have thought.”

“What? How can you say that? I don’t have my grandfather’s best cards!”

If Yugi registered the insult, he didn’t show it. “Insects are weak individually, but when they swarm, they’re hard to beat. They’re all about strength in numbers. Insects are a team working as one, even if they rally around a strong leader, like Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth. It takes a rare force to drive them apart—like Red-Eyes Black Dragon. Your monsters are like best friends, in a way.”

Merciful Mothra. The nerve of this pipsqueak, this hollow fanboy with his stupid plastic smile, spouting happy-clappy garbage about friendship to him, who had just suffered the most crushing defeat of his life! What business did this spiky-haired goody-goody have to act like ruthless, beautiful bugs had anything to do with a numbskull togetherness philosophy?

It didn’t matter that tears beaded up in Weevil’s eyes or that his throat was constricting, and it mattered even less that everyone in the room might hear what he was about to say.

“Shut up, Yugi! I should have thrown your Exodia cards overboard like I wanted! Maybe then you and your stupid friends all would have had to fight like the rest of us, and you wouldn’t have even made it to the finals!”

Part of him wanted the bitter vindication of seeing how shocked everyone was. The look of utter disbelief on Yugi’s face was all Weevil saw before he tore out of the arena and into the hallway. The bedroom he’d slept in last night would make a good place to scream and wail and pound his fists. 

He didn’t get that far. On his way there, someone caught him by the wrist, stopping him.

“No! Let go of me! Can’t you see how upset I am?”

The person who had just apprehended him released his wrist. “I certainly can, Weevil boy.”

Who should stand there with a slight smile on his face but Pegasus? Oh, no, was the man he tried and failed to impress going to pull him aside like a schoolteacher addressing a student’s behavioral issues? Could this day get any worse?

It probably couldn’t, so Weevil allowed his tears to flow freely as he smashed his face against Pegasus’s chest.

After Weevil’s sobbing stained the front of his jacket, Pegasus bent down to look him in the eyes.

“Perhaps it’s a small consolation at best, but your loss in this duel was, on more than one level, for the greater good.”

What on Earth could Pegasus be talking about? Right after Weevil blew his big chance to make his idol proud, that same man he had admired for so long spouted some nonsense about self-sacrifice at him! Maybe he was no better than Yugi! But Weevil couldn’t let himself get mad at the one who handed him that trophy in person, the one who created the game that gave him this identity in the first place…

“H-how, Mister Pegasus?” he croaked. “What greater good?”

“Joey Wheeler had _much_ more at stake in this tournament than you did. His loss would have prevented him from serving his noble cause. If you knew what he was risking, any victory of yours would have left you feeling less proud of yourself than before. Quite ironic, if you ask me.” A small smile crept up Pegasus’s lips for a second. “At least, we can only _hope_ you’d be less proud.”

“But how did you know what he was risking?”

“All players’ motivations are completely clear to me. If I so choose, I can read anyone, especially during a duel.”

Beads of sweat formed on Weevil’s forehead. His intention wasn’t really _that_ obvious, was it? If it was, then why didn’t Wheeler or any of his obnoxious friends tease him about it? Was there something special about Pegasus? Did he have even more talents that no one knew about? 

“Don’t worry, Weevil boy. No one else noticed. And before you go, there’s something else I should tell you.”

His face grew hotter with every passing second. “What’s that?”

“When your first _love_ —not a whim or a diversion but your first sublime attachment—surprises you, nurture it and let it bloom. Grasp it with all your might, for it may be your last.”

And he walked back into the arena.

Blazing hot fists squeezed Weevil’s heart and stopped his throat as he ran into the bedroom he’d slept in last night. Screaming and not caring who heard, he flung himself onto the bed, letting his tears flow onto the quilt. 

In the middle of what felt like an hour of weeping and wailing, the door creaked open. The sound of footsteps became closer and closer…and then he felt a hand on his shoulder. He winced, but that now-familiar slightly rough voice said, “It’s me, Weeves. Nothing to be afraid of.”

As Weevil sobbed into the blanket, Rex’s comforting hand stroked his back and shoulders for what must have been ten minutes or more. When Weevil looked up, he saw Rex frowning as if he wanted to join the crying fest but made every effort to restrain himself.

They stayed silent for a little while longer.

“There’s a boat waiting for us outside,” said Rex.

So, after all this time, they were going to be sent home on a ship, like everyone who failed the prelims? Tears started to fall from Weevil’s eyes again, but Rex wiped them away with his fingers.

“I asked Pegasus if we could get our own ride back to the mainland, ‘cause I didn’t want us to go with _them_. And I was kinda surprised when he said yes.”

“Why were you surprised?”

“I was surprised that Pegasus granted any of his ‘guests’’”—Rex made finger quotes—“requests.”

“But…he knew I was dueling for both of us. He’d honor a request made for me, wouldn’t he?”

Rex groaned and wrung his hands. “No! He wouldn’t! He doesn’t care about you, Weevil! Would he make you sleep outside and let you starve and force you to fight or flee from big bullies if he cared? No way.”

“But—”

“You’re no more important to him than anyone else who competed in a Duel Monsters tournament, and that’s not real important. You know who does care about you, who does think you’re important? Me!” He jerked a thumb at his own chest.

Instantly, the impact of those words broke through Weevil’s understanding, like the _Cordyceps_ fungus breaking through the skin of its six-legged victim. Those stirrings he’d felt when Rex talked with him at night, that sense that the two of them shouldn’t be enemies, Rex’s eagerness to accept that Pegasus wasn’t trustworthy…now it all made sense. Weevil’s breath nearly stopped as Rex elaborated.

“And maybe you’re ready to call this tournament a waste ‘cause you didn’t win. Well, I don’t think so. Yeah, at first I wanted to win, and then I wanted _you_ to win. Actually, I still kinda wish I’d won…but we got to spend a lot of time together.” Rex’s blush deepened as he spoke. “Being with you…well, it counts for a lot. So, I’m glad we came here.”

Weevil didn’t know what to say when Rex looked at him with that sad yet expectant puppy-dog face. He considered a few possible responses and decided on the one he could say the fastest, because his throat started to tighten again, to say nothing of his fluttering heart and stomach.

“So am I.”

“You are?”

He nodded. “And I know exactly what you mean.” Weevil extended his trembling hand, hoping Rex would get the hint.

There was no need to worry. Rex’s dejected expression evaporated, replaced by a wide-eyed, wide-mouthed smile as he seized Weevil’s hand. 

“Yeeeaaah! I knew it! This is awesome!”

Squeezing Rex’s hand as hard as he could, Weevil said, “Don’t think we’re not rivals because of this. We’re still as fierce competitors as ever!”

“Of course we are! I’d never give that up! You wanna get going now?”

“Let’s blow this taco stand!”

From that moment on, a space for something—no, someone—besides bugs, Duel Monsters, and victory opened in Weevil’s moth-eaten heart. As they walked out into the island sunset and approached the boat that would return them to the mainland, Weevil knew that he and Rex would see each other again. Yes, they would make mistakes along the way, both in Duel Monsters and with each other. Even if it took them a month or two to share their first kiss and longer than that to say the word “love” in reference to each other, and even if they sometimes let their hunger for winning duels or collecting rare cards get in the way of what was good for anyone, he and Rex would see each other again and again and again. One day, they would decide to stay together for the rest of their lives. Primal instincts told Weevil so, and he thought he detected that same intuition in Rex.

Letting the goody-two-shoes friendship squad know that either of them cared about someone else was another story…

  


THE END


End file.
